Is Advertising Good for Society?

 Is Advertising Good for Society?

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Is Advertising Good for Society?

Advertising is a very disputable issue in many societies. Some people say that it is a part of the business and because of it, advertising is good for society. It brings a lot of benefits and contributes to the development of society. Due to advertising, people get to know about new goods, services, and even ideas. They save their time and money because it is not necessary to look through dozens of online shops and real malls searching for some certain products. Besides, some advertisements can be simply creative, funny, and entertaining to watch. Despite the mentioned benefits, there are many opponents of advertising who say that it has more drawbacks than benefits because it makes people buy unnecessary services and goods. Some advertisements are based on social stereotypes, such as sexuality of women. While there is no agreement in the society concerning advertising, the analysis of recent publications in the media and scientific journals proves that this phenomenon is good for modern society because it performs informative, educational, and even entertainment roles.

Advertising as an Instrument of Business 

Advertising is often defined as a form of marketing communication which with the help of audio or visual forms transmits a non-personal but sponsored message with the aim of boosting the sales of some product or service. The scholars have identified the main aim of advertising in the following way “Using public media like television, magazines, billboards, etc., advertising attempts to create a desire in the consumer for the possession of its product or use of its service by associating the product or service with goals seen as part of living the good life” (Morse, 2000, p. 49). It is clear that the main aim of advertising is to make various goods attractive to consumers. In this way, it performs its business function and serves as an engine of commerce. Still, alongside with being a business instrument, starting from the second half of the 20th century, advertising became a part of social life and began to perform many other roles and functions.

Informative Function of Advertising

Advertising has a long history, and it can be called an integral part of human civilization since it accompanied trade and commerce all over the planet. Starting from the first cities of Ancient Egypt and up to huge megalopolises of modernity, advertising has always been associated with progress and innovation. This claim was successfully proved by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who in his speech conducted in 1931 argued that advertising is a powerful tool for spreading knowledge. He said that “The general raising of the standards of modern civilization among all groups of people during the past half-century would have been impossible without the spreading of the knowledge of higher standards by means of advertising” (as cited in Pardun, 2014, p.2). The claim of Franklin Roosevelt emphasizes the importance of advertising for spreading knowledge.

 Another example illustrating the informative function of advertising is the one of Thomas Edison’s innovations. Edison is the inventor of such everyday objects as an electric bulb and an electric iron. At present, it is impossible to imagine people’s lives without them, but in the early 1900s, the inventor had to try hard to persuade consumers to buy these objects which either doubted their usefulness or did not know about them at all (Joyce, 2007). Without advertising, it is very unlikely that they would have become an indispensable part of people’s everyday lives. Besides, in the time when these things were invented, many people considered them to be unnecessary and to be objects of luxury; however, they greatly contributed to human progress in general. It is even possible to argue that electric bulb is one of the innovations that changed the world. It enabled people to spend more time outdoors and changed their habitual patterns of entertainment and communication. Due to the use of electric bulbs, people started to work longer, and it considerably increased their productivity. This is just one example of dozens of useful innovations which became popular and widely used by people mainly because of the talent of their advertisers.   

Besides, advertisements inform people about advantages of a certain product. It helps them to make better bargains and to buy more technologically advanced goods. Without advertisements, people will remain unaware of sales, discounts, or special offers that enable them to save money. One more positive aspect of advertisement for the society is that it attracts people’s attention to such important issues as environmental protection. For example, advertisements of electric cars, such as Nissan Leaf or Tesla, can be called environmentally friendly (Chappell, 2011). Alongside with providing information about the benef